David Levy Yulee

David Levy Yulee (12 June 1810-10 October 1886) was a US Senator from Florida (D) from 1 July 1845 to 3 March 1851, preceding Stephen Mallory, and from 4 March 1855 to 21 January 1861, succeeding Jackson Morton and preceding Thomas W. Osborn.

Biography
David Levy was born in Charlotte Amalie, Saint Thomas, Danish West Indies in 1810, the son of a Moroccan Sephardic-Jewish lumber businessman; his father was the cousin of Judah P. Benjamin, the future Secretary of State of the Confederacy. The family immigrated to the United States in the early 1820s, settling near Jacksonville, Floirda, and Levy became a lawyer in St. Augustine in 1832. He served in the territorial militia during the Second Seminole War, and he served in the legislative council from 1837 to 1839. In 1851, he founded a sugar cane plantation, and he chartered the Florida Railroad in 1853.

From 1841 to 1845, Levy served as a territorial delegate to the US House of Representatives, and he was elected to the US Senate as one of Florida's inaugural senators; he was the first Jew to serve in the Senate. He served from 1845 to 1851 and from 1855 to 1861, when he resigned in order to support the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Following the war, he was imprisoned at Fort Pulaski for nine months for treason, specifically for aiding the 1865 escape of Jefferson Davis. After receiving a pardon, he rebuilt the Yulee Railroad in Florida, and he fathered Florida's railroad system, while he also brought increased economic development to the state. He died in New York City in 1886.